


To the sacred call of 'Friend'.

by flandersmare



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, F/M, Gen, I have a lot of Molly feels OK, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Molly Hooper knows exactly what she is doing, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, all Scifive's fault, controlling realtionship, implied minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flandersmare/pseuds/flandersmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly’s life has been one documented with departures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the sacred call of 'Friend'.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scifive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scifive/gifts).



> This is the result of a tumblr ask box prompt that ran thusly:
> 
> What’s A Fic You’d Like To See Me Write?  
> dodgylogic - OH GOD GIVE ME MORE OF YOUR MOLLY FEELS OK, YOUR MOLLY FEELS ARE BEAUTIFUL AND BREAK MY LITTLE CYNIC’S HEART
> 
> This is the result. It is rather stilted and was a rushed job. It is unbeta-ed and a mess and I don't usally write and I'm just gonna shut up now. I had to get it finished before 'The Sign of Three' this evening as I fear I will not be functioning after tonight.

‘So, when do you think you’ll be back?’

Molly’s life has been one documented with departures.

 

‘So, when do you think you’ll be back?’

She says it sat on the bottom step of the stairs when she’s 12 years old. Her older brother James is standing slightly stooped in the doorway, weighed down with his cricket bag across his back and a box of books in his arms. He grins at her easily, ignoring their parents as they called to him from the driveway for a moment where they stood waiting by the loaded car.

‘Ah, don’t worry Mols,’ he laughed, shifting the box to rest on one hip so he could wrap one gangly arm around her shoulders. ‘I’ll write, and I’ll be home for Christmas’.

And he was right. He did come home for Christmas. And Easter the next spring. But the letters taper off after a few months. And then he starts spending long swathes of the University summers with friends. And then the girlfriends started following him home. And then he started following them home. Then abroad. She gets a Christmas card some years. She watches the names accompanying his change in pace with the franked stamp. Then they both settle, somewhere on the Canadian/Alaskan boarder. The list of names at the bottom grows steadily. There are never photos.

 

‘So, when do you think you’ll be back?’

She helps her dad slip his old barber jacket on and tries not to notice just how thin his shoulders are now.

‘Oh Molly dear, I’ll be back later this evening. It’s just a check-up with the oncologist, see how the chemos doing.’ He smiles at her, holding her at arm’s length, before bringing her in for a tight hug. Molly lets herself cling a little tighter that was probably wise, but her dad never says a thing. ‘Have the kettle on for me around 6:30,’ he says pulling back and bopping her on the nose like he did when she was tiny. ‘You know, I think that this might be the last visit in. I’ve just got this good feeling. That will be nice, seeing the back of this, getting these old things back up to speed,’ he raps a fist on his own sternum lightly, admonishing his own lungs. ‘It will be nice for your mother,’ he nods surreptitiously to where her mother is sat waiting in the car to drive him in. ‘She’s been complaining about the mileage again’. Molly muffles a watery laugh and waves as the old Ford back out of the driveway.

And he was right. That was the last visit in for him. But the kettle cools by 6:45 and the mileage to and from the hospital, it only gets greater over the course of the next few weeks. Her brother sends a card.

 

‘So, when do you think you’ll be back?’

‘What? Oh hello Molly, sorry, um’, Greg stops his pacing on the pavement in front of Speedy’s to look up at her. She’d escaped from the living room upstairs with the faint burning in her nose and the dull roaring in her ears that told her she had seconds before she started crying, and he may have apologised, but she is not giving Sherlock the, satisfaction?, or whatever he got out of it, not tonight. She’d found him muttering absently and moving back and forth the 8 feet between the awning of Speedy’s and the railings to the left of 221B. ‘Umm, I don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know if I can….’

His voice cracks and he drops his head into his hand and before Molly knows what she’s doing she’s stepped off the stoop and has her arms wrapped around his waist and her head under his chin. They stand there for a while, Molly shaking slightly with the cold and Greg just shaking. There are a few coughs and throat clearings as Greg collects himself. His hands rub absently up and down her back, and while she warms a little, the trembling doesn’t abate. He sighs into her hair as he pulls back slightly, not quiet meeting her eye, swallowing thickly. ‘I need to go, don’t I? Need to, to what, confront her? See if it’s, it’s true or not.’ His eyes flick up to the windows of 221B and there is a look of mutinous resignation on his face. Molly’s distracted by the snowflakes catching in Greg’s salt and pepper hair. He sighs again and looks her in the eye and the weariness in his face chokes her.

‘Molly,’ she flinches slightly and steps out of the circle of his arms. She’s freezing again all of sudden but unable to drop his gaze even as she turns to see John standing in the doorway. Molly is painfully aware of Greg’s eyes on her as she takes her coat from John, accepting his apologies but her work phone had rung about four times since she left the room. She smiles shakily and bats away his apologies for Sherlock while she checked her messages. 4 missed calls. 2 texts. Bart’s. Emergency. Jane Doe found. Promise of double time. Please come in now. She straightens and thanks John’s for his hospitality with a short hug and a brief peck on the cheek but sorry, her evening had been cut short.

‘I’ll be making tracks too,’ Greg says from behind her. ‘Got to get, get ready for, tomorrow.’ John just nods sagely, raising his hand as he bids them both a ‘Happy Christmas’, his expression apologetic as he was perfectly aware it was too little too late for that. Molly bundles herself back into her coat and heads towards the main road. ‘You getting a taxi?’, he asks as he walks with her, his shoulder idly brushing hers.

‘Yes, been called in. Umm, emergency case. Probably all be sorted before you get back from Dors-, oh, um’ her hand flies to her mouth and she has to fight the impulse to take off. Greg huffs a laugh and wraps her in a one armed hug just before they part ways at the main road.

‘Merry Christmas Molly Hooper,’ Greg murmurs into her hair once more. ‘I’ll see you in the New Year. I’m sure. We’ve got a busy year ahead of us no doubt but this’ll be sorted by New Year’s.’

And he was right. The Jane Doe was identified for a given definition, and Greg came back from Dorset. Molly tried not to stare at the strip of pale skin on his left hand when she next. And the coming year. Well, the coming year.

 

‘So, when do you think you’ll be back?’

She doesn’t look at him as she says it. She’s still facing the sink as she scrubs the last of the blood of her hands and out of the cloth she used to wipe him down. She doesn’t need to look around. She knows he’ll still be huddled on the floor in a pool of dark tweed.

‘Well?’ and there is a quietly shaking fury in her voice now. ‘How long? How long do you plan on being a dead man Sherlock?’

She doesn’t say what she wants to. Doesn’t dare ask the questions that roiled behind her teeth because once she starts she will not be able to stop until she collapses. _How long will I need to play dumb? How long do I need to look them all in the eye and lie? How long will I have to watch them shatter again and again for? How long until I can put it right, until you can put it right? And how damn long am I going to have to watch pillars of my world walk away from me? How long until I lean to lift my own bloody feet and move on my own and sodding follow?_

There’s hot tears rolling down her cheeks now and she can’t quiet remember them getting there. Or indeed her crouching down in front of Sherlock. He looks for all the world a great, rangy marionette, strings snapped and littered about him. His shoulders shake and she could hear his breathing keening through clenched teeth. He slowly raises his face to her, his usually impassive and superior expression crumpled and tear stained and the red rimmed eyes were those of a child. Lost, terrified and so so sorry.

She sits with him while he cries. They are undisturbed in this quiet corner of her lab room. She wasn’t meant to be in today, no one is expecting her. She shields him from the light from the door as they sat. His head on her shoulder as he curses Moriarty’s name and moans and begs for forgiveness from John. He’d heard him apparently. Heard every word John had said on that blood stained pavement and Sherlock weeps pitifully into the collar of her lab coat.

As he calmed, his begging turned to thanks. To her. He whispers praise and thanks into the air at her throat and the world started turning again. She takes his coat. She needs it on the John Doe that had turned up, shot execution style, back of the head, easy enough to make it look like an impact wound, and with a striking resemblance to a now dead man.

He leaves her with instructions. Don’t tell them, please, I beg you, don’t tell them, I’m sorry, please, here’s my brother’s details, contact him however and whenever you need, please, I’m sorry, Molly please forgive me, but don’t tell them, not John, not Mrs Hudson, not Lestrade, please, whatever it takes, I’ll be back, I’ll fix this, somehow, it will take time, it’s still not safe, they are still not safe, I’m sorry, forgive me.

And he was right. He left her lab and London that day, leaving her the coat and all it entailed. They weren’t safe. None of them were. Jim might be dead and the sniper sites lowered, but they were far from safe. She hangs the Belstaff in her locker and makes a habit of looking at it any times she needs strength. And there are moments when it is all she can do from climbing onto that thrice damned roof and screaming at the sky line.

But whatever it takes. She’ll keep them safe, even as they all walk away from her, she’ll protect them.

 

‘So, when do you think you’ll be back?’

Tom looks up and smiles winning at her from where he was crouched by the kitchen door. He tucks the last of his water proof kit into the small hold all and rises to his feel.

‘Providing the trains run to time and the head beaters are actually prepared to listen to the management briefing,’ he signs as he meanders towards her and entraps her against the breakfast bar, and arm either side of her hips, ‘I ought to be home end of this week. Ideally Saturday night.’ She grins cheekily up at him, ready for an evening in her oversized dressing gown and comfy pyjamas.

She’d listen to him as he’d given a rough outline of this business trip. An old estate with unfinished business, head of the family dead, new management not been able to shift an old nuisance species that had since reappeared in the area. He was being sent in as the big guns to clear the issue once and for all.

‘OK, well, you take care. Knock ’em dead and don’t be gone too long. Juno’s not the same when you’re gone.’ Answering to her name, the German Shepherd trots into the kitchen and rubs her head insistently against Tom’s leg. He laughs, scratching her behind the ear. She turns her head into it, tongue lolling comically.

‘Are you gonna take care of my best girl? Are you?’, Molly giggles as Tom crouches down again to fuss Juno properly, ruffling her fur. ‘Of course you are. Right, sorry love but I’m going to have to hit the road if I’m to get to Scotland for tomorrow morning.’ He stands, catching up his bag. ‘There will be Hell to pay if I miss my connection.’ He leans in and kisses her softly. ‘You’ll be seeing me again soon, don’t worry.’

And he was right. She did see him again, much sooner that he’d ever anticipated. But he didn’t see her. Of course he couldn’t, not through the two way mirror. He never did get that connection heading up the east coast line, but then again, his destination wasn’t some old estate building up north. He was quickly and quietly funnelled into tighter and tighter security, until he came directly under the eyes and the hands of the British Government himself. But there is only so long a man can come home with a strange perfume on his clothes before the woman in his life suspects something. For some, the giveaway is Chanel No. 5 or Kenzo and lipstick on the collar. Tom’s mistress of choice left the lingering smell of cordite in his hair and bruising on his right collar bone. Oh and the disappearances. And unexplained deaths in the news.

Molly locates her phone on the dresser in the living room where Tom had left it and sends a quick text to a girl friend. _‘His Lordship out of the house. Gone hunting. Do you fancy picking something up and coming over? I believe you said the kids are all in this evening? Molly.’_

She sets the phone down and goes to the kitchen to brew herself a cup of tea. She comes back into the living room to find Juno up on the sofa, head cocked towards the window, as she does every time Tom leaves the building. Molly settles on the sofa and sinks her free hand into the hair at Juno’s ruff. ‘I know girl, you’ve been watching too right?’ There’s a low grumble from the dog as she settles her head onto Molly’s thigh. They wait maybe 45mins before her phone chirps with a text.

_‘Sorry sweetie. Man of the house has his hands full. Can’t leave him at the moment. But you are more that welcome to come over. We’ve got a good show all lined up ready to go actually. The two lads were supposed to be in but they snuck out and got up to the usual. But I’ve asked their father to come pick you up though, poor soul needs a break. He should be on route at now. See you in a bit, Anthea.’_

Molly’s dressed and waiting when Greg knocks on her door not 15mins later, slightly ashened and blinking rapidly at her. She can see his throat is working furiously, trying to find words to break the news to her. Molly just smiles at him and delicately slips the engagement ring off her hand, setting it in the little bowl of keys and pocket debris next to the door.

‘So, when do you think we’ll be back?’


End file.
